Examining Throwing Tendencies Throughout the Ultimate Frisbee Association(UFA)

Isabella Ferrandiz, Tai Fowler, Lou Zhou

Motivation

  • Ultimate Frisbee - similar to American(Gridiron) Football

    • Scoring by passing disc to teammate in opponent’s end zone

    • Cannot move while holding disc

    • Turnovers from interceptions, incompletions, and out of bound passes

  • Strong growth of a professional environment with dedicated leagues and athletes

    • Advanced analytics still relatively novel

Data Overview

  • Throwing Data Provided by the Ultimate Frisbee Association(UFA), 2021 - 2024
    • Per Throw Basis
    • Physical Throw Data
      • Start and End locations, success status, throw distance and angle
    • Thrower and Recipient Data
      • Player IDs, Team IDs,
    • Game State
      • Score, Time Left, Quarter, Possession Number

Outside of Scoring Attempts, Players Tend to Throw Towards the Middle

Teams Attempt Farther Throws During the End of Close Games

Team Archetypes Using K-Means Clustering

Discussion

  • Conclusions
    • Tendency to throw towards middle, except for scoring attempts
    • Teams throw deeper during the ends of close matches
  • Limitations
    • Uncertainty of end locations around failed passes
    • Inconsistent rules across leagues - difficult to interpret across the sport
  • Future Work
    • Examining throwing tendencies per player
    • Determining changes in tendences across years

Appendix - End Location Shiny App

https://louzhou.shinyapps.io/ufa_endlocations/